


Eight Times With More to Come

by JumanjiiCostco



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Drowning, Implied/Referenced Torture, lots of near death experiences implied, my love for vax spilled over into my love for the m9, what a bunch of assholes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 07:33:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16404044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JumanjiiCostco/pseuds/JumanjiiCostco
Summary: Vax'ildan has intervened in each of the lives of the Mighty Nein at least once. This is their story.





	Eight Times With More to Come

The first of the Mighty Nein to brush with death–and by default, Vax’ildan–is fresh from the womb, born into the lap of luxury with an umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. Death does not claim her yet. The Lady of Winter is not ready to harvest such a young soul, at least not this one, and her Champion carefully unwraps the bondage from her throat. Gives her a smile for good luck. Eyes her parents–her father, most particularly–as he steps away. They feel familiar in a way he can’t place, but doesn’t trust. Like the ghost of a memory he doesn’t want to remember. Rejection in their blood. 

The second is a young man with the shit freshly beaten out of him by a man who claims to know what’s best. It’s not even at his hands that the encounter comes, at least not directly, but from the flames that lick burning hot tongues against the thatching of his childhood home. The screams tear at his soul and for an agonizing second—long and drawn out as it might be—Vax watches from the shadows. Though he will wish for it in the time to come, Lady Death is fickle and refuses the young Zimnian’s requests.  _It is not his time, my champion. Leave him to his self-depreciation._  

The third is in a land that plays by different rules, where hunter and hunted is the status quo. Some would call it Savage, Vax knows that it is simply different. The girl in question is small and frightened, bleeding and cowering in the shade of a tree. He can feel her heartbeat through the earth, fluttering and erratic as it is, like a tiny bird desperate to break free. The Raven Queen wants this one, and the secret strength within, he can see it in her face when she sends him to watch the girl scream. But she is claimed before he can step in–thunder shaking the sky and lightning striking the nearby trees, until all that is left is ash and the distant screams of fearful bullies, and the quiet sobs of a terrified girl. Vax turns away as the rain washes blood from her face and the Storm Lord makes her his own. 

The fourth is as painful as it is familiar, though perhaps in the way he least expects. A little goblin girl, shivering and shaking from the cold, left with so little to defend herself, cast aside by her own people. It draws too many memories of things from too long ago to the forefront of Vax’ildan’s mind, and he almost steps in too soon. A goblin in a city prison is never a pretty sight, and more often than not, it ends with someone carrying a dagger in their back. And she is on the brink, not well liked or liking much herself… until she stumbles across a dirty man in a tattered coat who looks just familiar enough for Vax to slow down. Maybe if he can just delay the inevitable…

The fifth is tossed overboard in the midst of an explosion and ripped out of Vax’s hands before he can swoop in and save him. A singular yellow eye opens in the depths, tentacles writhing and reaching for the limp man as he breaks through the waves. It’s all Vax can do, watch and fly a few feet above the turbulent waters, as he struggles to find his way up. As his patron chooses him, albeit without consent, to whatever end it might choose. There’s a twist in the half-elf’s stomach, nausea building as he resigns himself to watching a bit more closely. 

The sixth is a vibrant soul if Vax has ever seen one, and a familiar face at that. This life looks good on him,  _looked_  good on him, and this time, Vax gets to take him. It’s easier this way, with the tiefling more open to traveling. He  _wants_  to go back, of course, wants to help his friends, but he’s wise enough to know that would only fuck them up more. He’s a smart one, that circus man, and a riot to take through the afterlife. Eventually, he starts to smile again. 

The seventh is the hardest to watch, because it’s easy to see how bright of a spirit she is. And it’s even easier to see how broken that spirit has become. Loss and grief and abandonment do horrible things to a person, and in a damp dungeon on the outskirts of Shady Creek Run, this young woman feels all of those things. Still, she does not beg for her life, still she is defiant and clever. Even in the face of torture. Even as she lays in shackles, screaming on a table. Even as they take her within an inch of her life and Vax is right there to take her hand as she fades into his plane instead of hers. She is resilient, even as dimmed from her glow as she is, and she refuses, clinging to life like no one he’s ever seen. He does not try to wait her out. 

The eighth is the most peculiar because it’s the closest he comes to being caught. Clerics are intuitive people, and even as wrecked and waterlogged as this one is, knocked on his ass every few moments by another torrent of water, Vax is certain this one almost sees him. But it could be his imagination, right? That’s what he’ll tell himself. He doesn’t wait for long, anyhow, this group is plucky and bright and saves their own cleric, even if it seems out of turn. It’s enough to make the Champion smile, to not be needed this time. To see the combination of so many fervent, strong wills for a vastly positive outcome. 

They’re not heroes, but they’re not dead yet, either. There’s plenty of time.


End file.
